Theatrum Belli

The French military has been fighting in Afghanistan for ten years, same as us. However, they aren't getting a lot of support from the folks back home. So, at this link, you can send a message of support to French soldiers in the field this Christmas, who are just as lonely as ours.

David Mamet on Greed

I disagree with several details of Mr. Mamet's conservative epiphany, but he does score many incisive points. Like this one:

"The Left's current sentiment for the confiscation of benefits legally earned, but to them offensive, is Greed.

To wish to abrogate a legal contract between employer and employee because a nonparticipant feels someone got too much money is greed. It is not greed for money, but covetousness born of envy--the desire for that which legally belongs to another. That those in favor of this may not want the actual money for their own use is beside the point--they want the enjoyment of the power to strip the money from another. They may not use the confiscated funds to buy a car or a meal, but the billionaire who earns another million dollars cannot earn it either--he, like the offended Liberal, is enjoying the warm glow of its possession. A rampant and untrammeled glee, an unchecked ambition for gain is, in the individual, called miserliness; in the society which strips him of it, it is called Socialism.
-- David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm traveling, just ducked downstairs to the motel lobby to fire off a closing Thanksgiving greeting to you. What I am thankful for? I'm thankful for all the mid-life family challenges I face. I hit bottom pretty early in life, and it's been one long rebound ever since. I have grown up more than I ever suspected was possibly in the past decade and a half, so much so that I blush at the thought of my earlier protracted immaturity. In fact, I feel that I didn't grow up, so much as I converted to adulthood, with all the zeal of a convert. I feel my shortcomings in my present responsibilities quite keenly. But I'm grateful that I have been preserved, safeguarded, and brought to this present time to grapple with them at all. (Sorry to be enigmatic, but this is a pseudonymous blog, after all!) I'm also glad for my remaining family (I'm the youngest child of youngest children), and the chance to be with them. Hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday.

It frightens me
The awful truth
Of how sweet life can be
-- Bob Dylan, "Up To Me"

Occupy Wall Street protesters being cleared out of parks.

Where do they go from here? Back to university. They'll get tenure, write the history books, and portray themselves as heroes to mush-headed students of a future generation. Just like the radicals of '68 did. No one remembers how they stole credit for the civil rights movement, nor all the bombs they set, nor the soldiers they spat on, nor the criminals that they made into folk heroes, nor the riots they instigated & then successfully blamed on the police. Rather, they sit in pampered academic security, giving their blessings to their young proteges. And so shall it be with this lot.

Brooklyn museum exhibit features depiction of ants running wild over crucifix

Well, aren't we just too edgy to handle without oven mitts. Supposed to be a statement about AIDS or some similar sort of values inversion, to put mainstream society in the wrong, I gather. But if the intent is to shock, then the artists stand revealed as wimps. They no more want to be murdered, or go into hiding, or fend off homicidal attacks in their own homes, or be ostracized as racist by their own kind, than anyone else does. But that's what would happen--what has happened--if they made sport with images of The Prophet of the One True Faith.

Porn star Sasha reads to LA school children

Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future. OTOH, you can only have one reputation at a time.

"I am an actor. I am an artist. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a partner. I have a past that some people may not agree with, but it does not define who I am.

Scores of angry parents, even nowadays, even in La-La Land, would beg to differ.

Seven billionth human born this weekend: welcome, little stranger!

"There's just enough of me, but way too many of thee" is a prejudice as old as civilization. But it's notable that liberals--who feel themselves shouldered with the duty to run everyone else's lives--regard the rising population as mere mouths and stomachs. That is, as just another problem to solve (or at least to strike a concerned pose about). But the flaw is in liberals' base presumption: that humanity will inevitably rush headlong into ruin without their, liberals', intervention. (They never explain of what finer clay they are made, but that's another story.) They never quite believe that other people can solve problems, that other people can co-operate peacefully with each other, that other people are smart. It doesn't make them feel all affirmed & complete inside, to think that way, to have that kind of respect for other people, as patronizing people does.

Wealthy nations have lower birth rates. So, if liberals are serious about wanting the world's population to come down, they should recuse themselves from economic affairs, so that more people can get rich!

Is Occupy Wall Street the culmination of an Alinsky-ist plot?

You know, I don't believe in conspiracies, so much. But filling the unemployment rolls with thousands of Left-indoctrinated young people, with massive debts and degrees in worthless subjects, would be a socially disruptive move worthy of Alinsky himself. If it wasn't done on purpose, it certainly is playing to the hard Left's hand of cards anyway.

Occupy Wall Street law-breakers foreseen by Frederic Bastiat

Hey, when you practice civil disobedience--just like Gandhi did!!!!--everything you do is right, dood!

"What young man, going out into the world full of ardour and passion, does not say to himself: "The impulses of my heart are the voice of Nature, which is never mistaken. The institutions that stand in my way are man-made and are only arbitrary conventions to which I have never given my consent. In trampling these institutions underfoot, I shall have the double pleasure of satisfying my inclinations and of believing myself a hero" "
-Frederic Bastiat, 1848

Screwy Louie mourns Col Klink

Contemptible.

“I come to say to the world that the Nation of Islam mourns the loss of a great brother leader. Those who rejoice at his death, your laughter will turn to tears, and your joy will turn to sorrow and great pain,” Farrakhan said during the two-hour interview at WVON’s South Side studios.

Farrakhan had been a vocal supporter of the Libyan leader, traveling to Tripoli several times, and his Nation of Islam’s international headquarters, Mosque Maryam, was purchased with a $3 million loan from Gadhafi.

Pampered America-hater doesn't know what tears are.

Can any good thing come out of Berkeley?

Well, if we're talking about the hard physical sciences, yes. A project called Berkeley Earth went back and reviewed the climate change data that's been disputed over so much these past few years, and confirmed the findings. Something as complicated and omni-directional as climate can't really be crammed into a four word headline, or a 500 word blog post, even if I were qualified, which I'm not. So, click here and get up to speed.

I will, however, repeat my frequently voiced attitude towards global warming. I'm politically inclined to be dismissive of global warming. The image of failed socialist wackademic revolucionarios re-inventing themselves as environmental activists, seeking to shut down the means of production that they failed to win state ownership of, fits my mental template of the Left pretty snugly.

But, as voracious a devourer of popular science as I've always been, I must also admit that there seems to be more than a little something to global warming. I'm a big believer in the power of aggregate knowledge. If independent findings in many different scientific fields point to the same conclusion, then you've gotta take that seriously, the political coattail riders notwithstanding.

Greece, Eurozone, banks, and the 50% "Haircut"

Scenarios dire unfolded here and here.

Okay, thought exercise! In place of "banks" in this story, insert your name, and in place of "Greece", insert a needy, deserving unfortunate of your choice. So, the scene is this: The needy, deserving unfortunate and you had entered into a financial arrangement. The needy, deserving unfortunate has been borrowing from you, but is not able to pay you back. The looming default threatens to play havoc with your personal finances. Enter the government! It sizes up the situation and decides for you. It decides that you must simply take a bath on the bad loans. Which is to say, the money that you had lent the needy, deserving unfortunate is gone, and you will be on the hook for it and whatever collateral risk you took along with it. You may, however, receive a token bit of chump change from the government, to ease the sting. All for the greater good, of course--unless you're some kind of hater who has it in for needy, deserving unfortunates.

Okay, now you can take out the needy, deserving unfortunates, and substitute back in bloated, profligate, cafe society wannabe Greece. You're still on the hook, though.


Links via David Thompson and I forget who, sorry!

Gaddafi reported to be dead

So long, Col. Klink. The Mussolini of North Africa meets a fate quite similar to that of Il Duce. Cue The Clash:

But in these days of evil presidentes,
Workin' for the clampdown
Lately one or two have fully paid their due
For workin' for the clampdown




Else-web, I see that liberals and proggs are out in force, labeling him a creation of the U.S. That gives me an opening to post one of my favorite examples of American military heroism, right at the beginning of Gaddafi's regime, in 1969:

“One day Khadafy ran a column of half tracks through my base—right through the housing area at full speed. I shut the barrier down at the gate and met Khadafy a few yards outside it. He had a fancy gun and a holster and kept his hand on it. I had my .45 in my belt. I told him to move his hand away. If he had pulled that gun, he never would have cleared his holster. They never sent any more half tracks.”

That's the late Daniel "Chappie" James, Jr., a legend in the Air Force. "Where do we get such men?"

Occupy Wall Street protesters *don't* want to tax the rich?

In a Guardian column rebutting some criticism of the OWS movement, Amanda Marcotte makes this strange claim:

It's fun to pick apart the illogic behind the conservative obsession with federal income tax, but what is most remarkable about We Are the 53% is how off-topic it is. Supporters of the 53% Tumblr seem to be under the impression that Occupy Wall Street posters are demanding a higher tax burden on everyone who pays federal income tax. There is simply no reason to believe this, especially since both We Are the 99% and Occupy Wall Street have repeatedly emphasised that they object to the 1% of Americans controlling 40% of our wealth.

Very odd, counter to everything I've heard the protesters themselves saying. See for yourself.

Occupy Wall Street and The Tea Party Movements

The Tea Party and the OWS movement are mirror images of each other. The Tea Party is demanding that Washington stop robbing generations yet to be born of wealth yet to be earned, and leave productive citizens to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Occupy Wall Street is more European, demanding that "somebody" give or continue to give them free stuff, or preserve them from the consequences of their actions, since they've already gone to all the fuss and bother of existing. The sight never fails to disgust, whether it's this OWS stunt or a more typical demo: Unemployable post-post-post-post-docs who couldn't run a lemonade stand (not least because their kind have all but outlawed them) presuming to dispose of the earnings of their more capable fellow citizens, all for "the greater good". Neighbors, if you knew how to handle wealth wisely, you would also know how to earn it--and you wouldn't need to occupy Wall St., because you'd be able to be generous with your own earnings.

Mikhail Gorbachev: We should have preserved the Soviet Union

This on the 20th anniversary of the dismantling of the Soviet Union. He also says the U.S. should have done more to bail him out during the attempted coup. Mmmmm, nope. Good riddance to the Soviet Union, the most evil regime to have ever arisen in Europe. Not Nazi Germany? No. Hitler was as evil as Lenin and Stalin, but he didn't have the means or the time to match their body count. Plus, he lacked their friends in the West. Nazism was based on racial hatred, while socialism is based on class hatred. By the 1930s, racism was becoming an atavism, whereas the Depression had given socialism renewed appeal to the herd of independent minds. The Nazis never claimed to be slaughtering their millions for the salvation of all mankind. So the luckless victims of socialism were done in on a more resplendent altar in a better-attended political temple.

It all reminds me of this old Jules Feiffer cartoon, shortly after the Soviet Union dissolved.

When that fool, Reagan, called the Soviet Union `the evil empire', I knew we were headed for war.
When that fool, Reagan, gave a blank check to the arms race, I knew the odds favored nuclear annihilation.
When that fool, Reagan, launched star wars on the premise that the Soviet Union would go broke trying to keep up, I knew he was a dangerous kook living in a never-never land.
When the Soviet Union went broke, surrendered its empire and called off the cold war, I knew it was Gorbachev's genius and Reagan had nothing to do with it.
Because if that fool, Reagan, was right all along...
What kind of fool am I?

The difference between progressives and children

Children demand the right to do whatever they please. Progressives demand the right to do whatever they please and consider themselves heroes for doing it.

#occupywallstreet Protesters Attack Police

Via The Jawa Report: Occupy Wall Street protesters attack police, as seen in the video below. Bet you've only seen the videos of the police's pushback, haven't you? Fautography from radical proggs? Well, knock me down with a feather... Ever notice how it's the union goons, the anti-globo rioters, the street-brawling anarchists, who are forever warning about the always-imminent but completely non-existent threat of Tea Party violence?

Anwar Al-Awlaki dead--Molly Norris to re-emerge?

First thing I did when I heard the news was to click over and congratulate the fine folks at The Jawa Report, for staying on this creep's case.

Maybe now Molly Norris can come out of hiding. Remember her? Molly Norris, a freeborn American cartoonist, practicing her lawful trade in the heart of her native land, had to go into hiding because of a death threat from al-Awlaki. I had a hard time believing that pre-Californicated Seattle would have stood for this. Would none of you hippies stand up for her, I wondered? Protect her, roar defiance at The Jihad, dare them to come through you to get to her? Or were they too busy laughing at misspelled Tea Party signs?

The fact that a harmless cartoonist at a run-of-the-mill altie rag had to hide for her life because of a fatwa from the late imam should demonstrate both the international and the Islamic nature of the The Jihad against our liberty and our lives.

Random Rock Bloggage: Farewell to REM

I never did see REM in concert, but I did play their music on college radio in the early days. How early? So early, that they were still a college band, and Michael Stipe was still a longhair. The radio station I was on was tiny, couldn't be heard off campus, and the preppie student body was deaf to our offerings (though I'm sure many came around years later). Pretty much no one listened except the staff. Now, of course, the music we played is on the nostalgia stations, or filling out endless re-packagings of that era's songs. Of all those bands, U2 and REM are the only ones I can think of offhand who have endured and had their greatness affirmed by both the critics and the buying public.

I liked what Mike Mills said one time: "We're the acceptable edge of the unacceptable stuff". I didn't like what Michael Stipe said, though: "I've always referred to the Beatles as elevator music because that's exactly what they were. I've never sat down and listened to a Beatles record from beginning to end. Those guys didn't mean a (expletive deleted) thing to me." It isn't because it offends me, but because the influence is screamingly obvious. All of REM's music sounds like it's descended from, an exfoliation of a single Beatles song, "Rain". Come on, now: you can easily hear REM covering it in your mind, can't you? Just goes to show how fecund The Beatles music was.

I enjoyed their early albums up to and including Lifes Rich Pageant, still do. "The Flowers of Guatemala" is probably my favorite song of theirs. I enjoyed many of the singles that appeared on the radio once they hit the top, too, but by that time I was beyond getting emotionally involved with bands. Had they continued releasing Fables Of The Reconstruction II, III, IV, V, etc., I probably would have never even known they were still together, when they announced their breakup. So congratulations to them for starting out edgy and literate, and bringing those same qualities along to mainstream success, and happy retirement to them.